Vying For Your Touch
by Rebecca Parker
Summary: Xander finds Anya with someone else


TITLE

TITLE: Vying For Your Touch   
AUTHOR: Rebecca Parker   
EMAIL: LaVelleBelle@aol.com   
RATING: R (language, sex talk)   
SUMMARY: Xander gets a shock.   
SPOILERS: Really only up to "Into the Woods"   
FEEDBACK: Yes please!   
DISCLAIMER: Joss and Mutant Enemy own all.   
DISTRIBUTION: At my site (http://www.ourowndestiny.com) and FINNatics. All others, please ask.   
DEDICATION: To Jenfr, who inspires me.   
NOTE: The title is from a lyric in Ani DiFranco's song "Untouchable Face" Also, this is just a rambling little ficlet. I'm evil.   
  
  
  
  
Did you ever notice that something that has the ability to make you incredibly happy also has the ability to rip you to shreds?   
  
It's one of God's funny jokes. What's that saying? If you want proof of God's sense of humor, just look at the platypus?   
  
I say just look at love. It's fucking hilarious.   
  
So when I stood there and watched as Anya kissed Giles in the backroom of the Magic Box, I couldn't help but laugh.   
  
They looked at me, that familiar shock/shame thing on both of their faces and I cringed inside remembering being on the other end of it. I imagined I looked something like a mixture of Cordelia and Oz right about now. I wasn't cool enough to be...well, cool like Oz, and I wasn't as comfortable with my feminine side to look as shocked and destroyed as Cordelia. But I was somewhere in-between and so I laughed.   
  
"Xander," Giles said, pulling out of his embrace with my girlfriend and I couldn't help but notice that his hand was still on her arm, lingering there as if waiting for me to leave so they could begin again. "This can be explained."   
  
"Ah," I said, the laughter still sitting in the bottom of my throat waiting for another occasion to let it loose. "An explanation," I repeated, looking down. I really needed new shoes.   
  
I could hear Anya trying to think of something to say; she has this low breathy way of pre-forming her words when she's in a new situation. I heard her make the same sound once when I asked her what she thought of anal sex and I laughed then too. Whoever thought that I could shock Anya?   
  
"Don't," I said, my voice harsh as I still kept my eyes on the ground. I don't want to hear what she has to say although I'm sure I'll find it amusing. At the very least, ironic. I mean, she spent 1,100 or so years punishing cheaters and here she is- one herself. Of course, if you look at it from another angle, this is the ultimate vengeance. Maybe D'Hoffryn will give her her powers back now that she finally "got" me. Cordelia, wherever you are- congrats. You won.   
  
"I'm just gonna turn around," I said, looking up at them and my eyes automatically transfixed on his hand still on her damn arm like he owned it. I touched that arms plenty of times, Giles. I've touched places you'd need months to find.   
  
"I'm gonna turn around," I continued, feeling my hands curl into a fist, "and I'm going to leave." I want to add words like "scream, beat and pummel" to that sentence but five years of being the good guy is a hell of a thing to get over in the space of 5 minutes.   
  
5 minutes. That's how long she usually lasts before she comes the first time. 5 minutes. That's how long it takes me to get ready before I go to work. 5 minutes. That's how long Buffy was dead before I brought her back.   
  
I have to snap out of it. I'm just standing here like an idiot, watching that hand run up her arm in an odd form of comfort-seduce-massage and I want nothing more than to rip that hand off and beat him with it.   
  
But it's Giles. The guy who's been like a father to me and now here he is, in the first stages of foreplay with my girlfriend. My girl. Mine. I hate to sound possessive, but damnit, she's mine. She's been everything to me for the last year and a half, and as far as I knew (which, staring at the two of them "together", wasn't very much) I was everything to her.   
  
So all of the sudden there's this kink in this plan. This in-his-40's-watcher-kink in the plan. All of the sudden, everything I had thought would happen between Anya and I was just some cheap dime novel where everyone lives happily ever after.   
  
Fiction. False. Not real. Like me standing here, feeling myself begin to laugh again. I watch as Giles shoots Anya a glance as if they're half scared for me, and half scared of me, and I turn around.   
  
I'm going to leave now. One foot over the other. I've been doing this for years- it should be a perfected art, damnit, but I can feel myself stumbling a bit as I walk out into the shop.   
  
"Xander?" Willow asks, looking up from the books. She gives me this odd look as if I came out of the backroom in a girdle and flippers.   
  
"Gotta go Will," I hear myself say, and I hold down another burst of laughter. I know if I come out looking like I do and THEN laugh, there will be no getting rid of her. I might as well have walked out of the room with a sign saying "Hey, Wait 5 minutes and you can watch my girlfriend fuck the old man."   
  
I'm not really good at hiding things.   
  
Anya and Giles are.   
  
As I walk out of the Magic Box, I wonder just how long this has been going on for. I wonder how it started. I wonder if he's made it between her legs yet and found out how great she tastes. I wonder if he's a better lover than I am and if I'm going to have to spend the rest of my life competing with him.   
  
I'm about two blocks down now, and I finally stop, leaning against a wall and taking a deep breath. I wonder if this is what Buffy felt like when she found Riley with that vampire. I wish I had slayer powers right about now. Maybe then I'd be able to hit something as hard as I want to and not break my hand in 32 places.   
  
I look up at the house in front of me and grimace as I read the sign dangling from the front porch. "Home is where your Heart Is."   
  
In that case, I should go home. Now if only I could find directions to the bottom of Anya's shoe.   
  
I'm sure Giles could give them to me.   
  
Before I know it, I'm laughing again as I start to walk back to my apartment, my mind already pouring that glass of whiskey I so desperately need.   
  
Giles drinks whiskey.   
  
"Damnit," I say, stopping in the middle of the street. I frown as I watch a few people look up at me as if I'm some freak Glory's brain-sucked. "Sorry," I mutter, sticking my hands in my pockets and continuing on my trek home. I try not to think about what just went down and so I go back to my usual avoidance-train of thought.   
  
Buffy in a red dress. A nice slit up the side, showing her tanned muscles.   
  
Buffy in a bikini. Not one of those trampy ones Britney Spears or whoever trounces around in, but a tasteful one. A sexy one. It's green. Not pine tree green. Green like her eyes.   
  
Now she's looking up at me and I breathe a sigh of relief as I relive the moment. "Xander," she says, and I run my thumb across her forehead, pushing back the wet strands of hair that had affixed themselves to her forehead. I brought her back.   
  
See. I can do something right.   
  
Let me get something straight. It's not like I'm still into her. I'll always find her sexy, yeah. I mean- she's Buffy. The girl's fit and can kick your ass. There's just not much sexier than that.   
  
She's just constant. There'll always be Buffy. I need to clear my mind- Buffy in a bikini gets it done every single time.   
  
A few more Buffy thoughts and I'm back in my apartment. Our apartment. Anya and my apartment.   
  
I wonder if Giles wants to move in. Really, we could do some hip swinger thing.   
  
But not.   
  
I've got that damn bottle of whiskey in my hands in 5 seconds flat and, of course, I fumble with the cap. A few more seconds of cursing and twisting, and I have the bottle to my throat, the warm liquid sliding down my throat.   
  
I'm determined to get through this night. Forget about the fucked up thing I just saw, concentrate on Buffy in that green bikini and just deal with it tomorrow.   
  
I wonder if his hand is still on her arm.   
  
Enough.   



End file.
